are you guys doing windows 8 dev straight on the tablet

[Marlon Grech]

Hey guys,

This weekend I am planning on a Windows 8 geekiness weekend... do you guys use the tablet directly to write windows 8 code or is there some trick I should know of ?

Regards
Marlon
WPF Blog - http://marlongrech.wordpress.com/
MEFedMVVM - http://mefedmvvm.codeplex.com

[Corrado Cavalli]

I don’t have a table powerful enough for VS11, I use emulator and remote debug when I need to test touch features.

[Colin E.]

The only Win8 device I have is the Dell Inspiron Duo, so I am kind of
doing Win8 direct on the tablet, but also it is a laptop as well!

Although I would not recommend a Dell Inspiron Duo. It is bulky, low
powered, has a terrible screen and poor battery life.

You get what you pay for!

--
Regards,
Colin E.

[Marlon Grech]

I am assuming that in otder to do so you still need a Windows 8 install correct ?

Regards
Marlon
WPF Blog - http://marlongrech.wordpress.com/
MEFedMVVM - http://mefedmvvm.codeplex.com

[Charles Petzold]

I'm using the tablet I got at Build.  It's basically a Samsung 700T, but I don't think it's exactly the same as something they sell commercially.

 

I use it in the docking port mostly, with an external 1920 x 1080 HDMI display, and also with a little USB hub I got at Staples so I can connect an external keyboard and mouse.

 

Sometimes it gets a little mixed up, and I get the Metro start screen on the big monitor, but mostly Visual Studio runs on the big screen and the Metro apps run on the tablet.  It's a great setup, and the tablet runs VS just fine.

 

The first 7 chapters of "Programming Windows," 6th edition are coming out in a couple weeks, but I've been spending the past week converting all the C# code from these chapters into C++/CX.  This is not something I'd recommend to someone who's been doing C# programming for a decade!  Although you're accessing the same WinRT Windows.* namespaces as in C#, you don't have access to the System.* namespaces.  In compensation you're using  Platform.* namespaces and C runtime libraries.  You're using a different String class, for example, which is basically a light wrapper on a const wchar_t*. 

 

This morning I had to write a low-level C++ routine to mimic the Byte.TryParse method, which is bad enough, but I was getting the text out of a TextBox and in the process, I discovered that

 

    String^ text = txtbox->Text;

    const wchar_t* str = text->Data();

 

works fine -- Data is the method defined on the C++/CX String class that exposes the C++ character pointer -- but this code returned a pointer to junk:

 

    const wchar_t* str = txtbox->Text->Data();

 

I'm sure some C++ maven can explain why this happens, but I'm befuddled (and I hate C++ more than ever).

 

Charles

 

 

 

 

 

From: Marlon Grech

Sent: Friday, May 04, 2012 5:46 AM

To: wpf-disciples

Subject: [WPF Disciples] are you guys doing windows 8 dev straight on the tablet

[Alvin Ashcraft]

Until I have some extra cash to get a tablet or touchscreen laptop, I'm stuck doing development with Win8 in a VM on my Latitude.

Alvin

--

Alvin Ashcraft - Microsoft Visual C# MVP
http://about.me/alvinashcraft/bio

http://gplus.to/alvinashcraft
alash...@gmail.com

[Jeremiah Morrill]

works fine -- Data is the method defined on the C++/CX String class that exposes the C++ character pointer -- but this code returned a pointer to junk: 

Your code looks correct, and just double checked on my machine to be sure.

I have seen lots of "junk" in my debugger though with VS11.  For some reason, my debugger will not have the correct "this" pointer sometimes.  I'll be stepping through a class and when it hits a method, all my class fields will turn to "junk".  Pre-release blues.

Can you try using OutputDebugString(...) with your garbage wchar_t and see if it is indeed the string or just the debugger and its lies?

-Jer

--
Microsoft MVP - Client Application Development

HJT, Inc Software Developer